Universal Soldier: Regeneration

Universal Soldier: Regeneration (2009)

Runtime: 97 minutes

Directed by: John Hyams

Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Andrei Arlovski, Mike Pyle, Dolph Lundgren

From: Foresight Unlimited/Signature Pictures

Here’s a movie that I’d never think of seeing, as on the surface it seems like just another cheap direct to video cash-in to a theatrical film. You’d be astounded as to how many there are, and just about all of them aren’t really worth seeing, and some of them I understand are awful beyond words. Sure, this has JCVD and Dolph returning, reprising their characters from the first movie (which I haven’t seen in full in years but I do remember it being good stuff for what it was), but Van Damme pretty much was forced to make this movie or else get sued, and Dolph only had a week to film his part. So, this sounds like a recipe for disaster, right?

Well, in this rare case, you’d be wrong.

Helmed by Hyams (whose father, Peter, has directed movies for the past few decades, such as Capricorn One, 2010, Running Scared, and the Van Damme starring Timecop and Sudden Death; he helped out his son with this movie by leading the cinematography, which explains why the movie looks so nice for its low cost), this proves to be a real gem that is good and is of such quality it could have gotten a theatrical release. No, really. Especially considering the circumstances I mentioned already, this far exceeds most people’s expectations.

This film is about rebel leaders in Russia who kidnap the teenaged children of the Prime Minister of Russia (in a great action-packed opening sequence) and they are held captive at Chernobyl, where a bomb is set up and if the leader’s demands are not met (mainly, releasing political prisoners), boom goes the dynamite and there’s a catastrophe. In their possession is a next generation Universal Soldier (in short, a Universal Soldier is a reanimated soldier which is given superhuman abilities via various chemicals and whatnot; it’s also emotionless and follows orders to the letter, or at least that is what is supposed to happen), played by MMA fighter Arlovski. This happens as a scientist in the program turns rogue and takes the model-the only one of its kind-to Russia in order to align himself with those rebels. The U.S. government sends in four original “UniSol” models, but they end up getting destroyed by the newer model. So, three things happen from there: the government tracks down Luc Deveraux (Van Damme) who is in Switzerland with a doctor trying to acclimate himself back into society… a tough special forces guy (Pyle, himself a renowned MMA fighter) goes in to try and rescue the hostages… then, one character has a “fail-safe” in case of emergency, and it’s a clone of Andrew Scott (Dolph, who JCVD battled against in the first movie), and while Scott isn’t in the movie for too long, his time in there is memorable, from beginning to end. So, there’s a lot going on.

It is a rather predictable movie, sure, but you knew going in not to expect Shakespeare or Hemingway in the writing and plot. It’s a blast to watch and besides the unexpected nods to such sources as Blade Runner, there’s also action that is shot VERY clearly and is easy to follow (contrast that with most action scenes this day and age, where you can barely figure out what’s going on at least half the time), and the musical score is pretty awesome; it sounds exactly like something John Carpenter would have composed in the 70’s, a la the original Assault on Precinct 13. It’s much better than the usual direct to video musical score that’s dreck. So trust me, this is a gem well worth trying to track down, especially if you’ve seen the first Universal Soldier and enjoyed it; you can also feel free to never see the two direct to video sequels that don’t have Van Damme in it (but for some reason does include the like of Burt Reynolds and Gary Busey!) or Universal Soldier: The Return, with JCVD, Michael-Jai White, and former pro wrestler Bill Goldberg. I haven’t seen any of those movies before aside from the first Universal Soldier, but I understand that all of the other sequels are pretty awful and are worth skipping.

I'll be back Friday night with a new review.